potatoes, a penny; half a pint of porter, a penny. The recollection
of it (and the mingled fragrance of beer, tobacco, and roast pork
generally leaves a vivid impression) might induce him to turn up his
nose a little less frequently in the future at everything that is put
before him. Then there is that generous party, the cadger's delight,
who is so free with his small change, but who never thinks of paying
his debts. It might teach even him a little common sense. "I always
give the waiter a shilling. One can't give the fellow less, you
know," explained a young government clerk with whom I was lunching the
other day in Regent Street. I agreed with him as to the utter
impossibility of making it elevenpence ha'penny; but at the same time
I resolved to one day decoy him to an eating-house I remembered near
Covent Garden, where the waiter, for the better discharge of his
duties, goes about in his shirt-sleeves--and very dirty sleeves they
are, too, when it gets near the end of the month. I know that waiter.
If my friend gives him anything beyond a penny, the man will insist on
shaking hands with him then and there as a mark of his esteem; of that
I feel sure.

There have been a good many funny things said and written about
hardupishness, but the reality is not funny, for all that. It is not
funny to have to haggle over pennies. It isn't funny to be thought
mean and stingy. It isn't funny to be shabby and to be ashamed of
your address. No, there is nothing at all funny in poverty--to the
poor. It is hell upon earth to a sensitive man; and many a brave
gentleman who would have faced the labors of Hercules has had his
heart broken by its petty miseries.

It is not the actual discomforts themselves that are hard to bear.
Who would mind roughing it a bit if that were all it meant? What